


No Longer Brave

by zarabithia



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-09
Updated: 2006-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 08:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14890883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: Following the incident with Tanner,  Lian has trouble sleeping.





	No Longer Brave

Once upon a time, Lian had been brave.

She hadn't needed a nightlight then. Because while she'd never liked going to bed, she'd never been afraid of the dark. Her family kicked bad guy butt in the dark. And Lian had always wanted to do the same thing, someday. 

But then the bad guy had come after her. It wasn't the first time she'd been kidnapped, but it was the first time the bad man had tied her up in a dark place like that. The other times. . . she hadn't been hurt that way. 

Lian hates the dark, because it makes her remember the ways Tanner hurt her. So Daddy bought her a nightlight, and Lian hates it too, because she isn't a baby, and shouldn' t need one. 

But it's better than being in the dark. 

Uncle Connor tells her it's okay to be scared, and Uncle Nightwing promises that the bad guy is in prison for a very long time and he can't come hurt her. Both her uncles and Grandpa Ollie tell her it's okay to use a nightlight. Aunt Mia and Aunt Grace say they don't like the dark much, either, even though neither one of them needs a nightlight. Her daddy tells her that she's still brave, and so does Aunt Dinah. 

She loves her daddy, her aunts, and her uncles, but she knows they aren't telling the truth. She knows she isn't brave anymore, because she remembers when she had been.

And being brave hadn't ever felt like this.


End file.
